


A Radiance That Travels

by Allatariel



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Mission Fic, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23235940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allatariel/pseuds/Allatariel
Summary: Jyn and Cassian have been sent to find a missing operative on Thyferra. So far nothing has gone to plan. SNAFU.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	A Radiance That Travels

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I'm finally posting a rebelcaptain story—I thought they'd languish forever in my drafts!
> 
> Comments and constructive criticism always more than welcomed and so greatly appreciated! Any advice on tagging would be amazing.

Jyn leaned heavily on Cassian as they hobbled over the rocky terrain through the downpour. It was a few hours past midnight on Thyferra and black as a Death Trooper’s armor what with both moons still hidden somewhere below the horizon. Glaring flashes of lightning briefly revealed their path every few minutes, followed at varying intervals by booming cracks of thunder that reverberated off the walls of the craggy, narrow canyons of black rock. _Basalt, sweetheart._

Cassian and K-2 had been bringing in their little U-wing through the ragged mountains separating Zalxuc City from the sprawling gloan tree forest beyond when they’d clipped a precarious outcropping. The drenching rains and clouded darkness had forced them to rely mostly on their instruments for navigation and the lightning had caused a fair bit of interference. The ship had landed hard, skidding along the rough, gravelly floor of one of the wider canyons. It had all reminded Jyn far too much of the approach to the Eadu base and she was still more than a little on edge.

Nearly two standard hours ago, Jyn and Cassian had left K-2 to piece their ship back into something flight-worthy and set off in search of the entrance to the system of caves that would lead them to the contact’s house on the outskirts of the City. They were hoping to find the missing operative Draven had sent them after there as well. She had been expected to check in a day ago and all attempts to reach their contact via secure holocomm channels had failed. Draven had been more affected by this than Jyn had yet seen him. Well, his jaw was slightly more clenched than normal, his shoulders a fraction higher. Jyn had felt the urge to put a hand on his shoulder when he’d come to see them off in the main hangar on _Home One_ , but she doubted he would have appreciated any acknowledgement of the crack in his façade, miniscule though it was.

Lightning flashed again and Jyn glimpsed a flutter of green and white plumage up ahead for the second time. What was that convor still doing out in this storm? She was going to fall out of the sky before too long. But she flew on, heedless of the rain that was surely washing away the preen oil coating her feathers. The oblong, grav-ball-sized bird seemed to hover for a moment and turn her head back toward them, almost as if checking they were still behind her before continuing on in her original direction. _Please know where you’re going, because you might be our only hope…_

Jyn sighed. She also hoped the contact was the miracle worker of a mechanic that Cassian had heard she was. K-2 was good, but the damage was likely outside the parameters of his programming and with Bodhi off on what was left of Jedha with Chirrut and Baze supporting Leia Organa’s mission instead of with them, this contact was their best bet.

Jyn stumbled and she and Cassian both hissed as her side collided with his, jostling the blade pierced through her left flank. Pain lanced through her and his hand gripped her wrist more tightly against his far shoulder. The fingers of Cassian’s other hand dug into her armpit as he hoisted her, his arm pressing supportively against her back. Until they found somewhere dry and safe enough to tend the wound, leaving the blade in was the best they could do to stem the flow of blood, but it did make getting there more complicated, and dangerous.

“I can’t believe you stabbed yourself with a vibroblade!” Cassian’s scowl had only deepened in the ten minutes since their encounter with that little Chadra-Fan bastard. Little was relative, he’d actually been quite tall for a Chadra-Fan, and old. 

“It wasn’t turned on,” Jyn snapped back as she shifted her left arm slightly over his shoulders so whatever that pointy thing was in Cassian’s backpack stopped digging into her arm. The sky flashed bright, Jyn saw that muscle in his jaw twitch and continued before he had a chance to, “He was going to shoot you!” Their attacker had come up under her jacket and vest. One clawed hand had dug into her back and gripped her shirt tightly, bunching the fabric in his fist and exposing her left flank to the chill. The little rodent’s blaster had been trained on Cassian’s head and his blaster, though in his hand, hadn’t even been raised for some reason. She had just acted. “And you didn’t have a line of sight that wasn’t through me—his hearts just _happened_ to be behind my kidney.”

Cassian sighed. Well, more accurately, his hearts had been behind her pelvis. Jyn’s blade had punctured his throat and Cassian had cleanly shot him through both hearts as he’d slumped out from behind her.

“He would have slipped up,” Cassian said evenly, reasonably, and she felt his warm breath over her chilled hand on his shoulder as he continued, “I could have gotten an angle, we just needed to wait him out.”

“Would’ve taken too long…we have a missing operative to find.” Jyn’s eyes drooped and she felt the chill in her hands and face spread inward—she knew the blood loss was starting to wear her down.

“And fixing you up won’t?” Cassian’s voice was soft, his lips gentle against the drenched skin of the back of her hand and she nearly drifted off for a moment. “Jyn? Jyn!”

Her head snapped up at his cry and her feet tangled when Cassian came to an abrupt stop in defiance of the wind and rain urging them relentlessly forward. She could make out his drawn face a bit better, could see the concern in his eyes behind his sopping hair. The smaller moon was probably rising.

“’M fine, Cass,” Jyn mumbled and she caught sight of that convor again, looking back at her before flying a few meters towards what looked like merely a small, exposed recess in the rough wall of the canyon. She hovered for a moment in the little space and then disappeared around a corner Jyn hadn’t noticed before. The bird reappeared a few moments later and hovered again in the recess as if waiting for them. Jyn pointed her free right hand toward the convor. “See, the convor…a cave...”

The convor again disappeared around the hidden corner and Jyn felt more than saw Cassian nod. They started forward again, entering the cave within minutes. It was dark inside, but it had been dark outside as well, and it was considerably dryer and getting warmer the deeper they went, the sound of the rain growing fainter with each step. After a few more minutes of hobbling along, Jyn began to think she might be hallucinating, because she could have sworn the walls were emitting a faint greenish glow and she thought she heard water flowing instead of falling.

It made Jyn think of some of her earliest memories. At least Mama had told her they were memories, she had not been able to tell the difference between a remembered reality and a dream at seven. In her defense, the memory in question was from just before her fourth birthday.

_“Mama, I had a dream we were in a cave with glowing yellow walls,”_ Jyn had told her mama in the grey light of early morning on Lah’mu as she’d made breakfast.

_“That wasn’t a dream, sweetheart. We went to a planet called Alpinn a few months before your fourth birthday.”_ Mama had smiled down at her and handed Jyn a bowl of warm skycorn cereal with blue milk in it. _“I wasn’t sure you’d have any memory of it. I’m happy you do.”_

“Jyn, I’m going to lay you down here by the edge of the spring,” Cassian’s voice cut through the haze of memory. “I’m not sure exactly what’s causing it, but the glowing walls are pretty helpful.”

_A spring and glowing walls_ —at least she knew she wasn’t hallucinating. “Maybe a bioluminescent lichen…could be something else.” 

Cassian eased her to the floor of the cave, her left hand trailed out over the flowing surface of the water and she delighted in the steam rising through her fingers. He pulled her hand back before she had the chance to dip it below the surface, bringing her fingers to his lips briefly as he eyed her uncharacteristic pout. Warmth bubbled through her chest as he placed her hand on her sternum.

“Careful, we don’t know if it’s safe,” he admonished gently, absently tracing lines between the freckles on the back of her hand for a moment as he’d taken to doing in the last few weeks.

“’S flowing pretty well…no foam or silt…should be fine...and they use the native bacteria to make bacta.” Mama and Papa had taken Jyn on some short expeditions to explore the caves near their homestead on Lah’mu after Jyn had wanted to know more about their visit to Alpinn. The hot springs they’d found there had been so fascinating to her, and Mama had been more than happy to answer all Jyn’s questions. Saw had reinforced the information years later in survival training.

“It could be too hot,” Cassian countered as he moved a few paces away beyond her feet. He removed his backpack and then his parka before kneeling to rifle through the backpack, quickly pulling out the medkit. He started to get up but then reached for his parka and pulled an unfamiliar datapad from one of the many pockets.

“Steam feels nice.” The warmth of the spring was fighting back the chill that had begun to set into her bones before their green and white friend had found the cave for them. _Where have you gotten to, silly bird?_

Cassian knelt between her and the edge of the spring, placing the datapad and medkit on the smooth stone in front of him and opening the medkit. He planted his hands squarely on his knees and hunched over them, his head bowed forward. Sighing heavily, Cassian pushed his hair back from his forehead and looked Jyn in the eye.

“I’m going to clean the exposed blade and wounds around it, then I’m going to put bacta gel in the wounds before I remove the vibroblade and use it to cauterize them. I’ll cover them with bacta bandages when that’s done. Is that alright, Jyn?” Cassian held Jyn’s drowsy gaze as she digested what was going to happen next, nodding her assent after a few moments. He nodded back and held the datapad out to her. “I took this off our attacker, see if you can find anything useful.”

“Yes sir, Captain, sir.” Jyn smirked lazily at him and he subtly rolled his eyes as she took the datapad. After carefully rolling onto her side away from Cassian with his help, she set to slicing into the datapad. She felt the cool, bacta-laced cleansing towelettes soothe and numb the wounds, the cloyingly sweet smell of the bacta overlaying the tang of blood and the damp, minerally smell of the cave. The Chadra-Fan’s security was pretty tight, maybe he was a bounty hunter or mercenary? Not tight enough to keep Jyn out, however, and she had bypassed the last of the encryption before Cassian had told her he was ready to pull the vibroblade out. 

“On three?” he asked and Jyn nodded, gritting her teeth. “One. Two. _Three._ ”

Jyn had a sense of the blade slipping free, but barely felt a thing. _Bacta’s certainly doing its job._

“Ok?” The concern in his voice made her heart ache and she wanted to reassure him that she was fine, but she suddenly couldn’t speak, so merely nodded again.

Jyn heard the tell-tale click and hum of the vibroblade igniting as it instantly became ember-hot, without the buzz that accompanied the vibration feature, unnecessary and dangerous for this use. Cassian warned her again before cauterizing first one wound and then its twin, waiting for her to nod each time before proceeding. She smelled the searing flesh, but felt little more than a warming in her side and knew the bacta had entered her bloodstream, lulling her into a state of serenity. The sound of bacta bandage wrappers ripping open filled her ears and she felt Cassian press the bandages over her wounds. He eased her onto her back and she smiled up at him, reaching for his hand. 

Thin veins of white light flared through the black rock of the cave as thunder boomed distantly, drawing both their eyes instantly. The basalt must have been laced with some sort of electromagnetically conductive crystal, interweaving through the walls up to the spires and crags exposed to the sky and the storm still raging above them. Perhaps the abrupt pressure changes and intense discharges of electricity caused by the lightning strikes were channeling full spectrum through the veins and dissipating safely down in the roots of the mountains below them. A similar effect to that of kyber crystals. _Piezoelectricity, Stardust._

Jyn was thankful this cave was so spacious and well lit, reminding her of Alpinn and other happy times with her parents and not of the other, darker memory of a lonely cave on a stormy night.

“That might make sleeping somewhat more difficult.” Jyn thought she heard Cassian say as she finally drifted off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> _I wrote this in July of 2018._


End file.
